Host Identity Protocol for Linux

Have you ever wondered why your multimedia streams stop working after you switch to a different network with your laptop? Have you thought about why setting up a server on your home network behind a NAT is so awkward or even impossible? Host Identity Protocol for Linux (HIPL) offers a remedy to these and other problems.

The HIPL Community

HIPL is open-source software for Linux.
We are actively improving the software according
to feedback from user mailing lists (www.freelists.org/list/hipl-users). We welcome all Linux enthusiasts to the HIPL
community, and we are looking for more users and
developers.

Conclusion

Host Identity Protocol brings
communications privacy and mobility support for
existing applications by introducing a new
cryptographic namespace. It also allows you to set
up servers behind NATs easily. In this
article, we discussed how HIP works and how
you can install it on your Linux box. We have
shown how you can use HIP with Firefox and how
to stream video with VLC successfully during
network IP address change.

M. Komu, S. Tarkoma, J. Kangasharju and A. Gurtov, “Applying a Cryptographic
Namespace to Applications”, in Proc. of First International ACM Workshop
on Dynamic Interconnection of Networks, September 2005:
www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~mkomu/docs/f17-komu.pdf

Abhinav Pathak (pathaka@purdue.edu) is a PhD student
at Purdue University. He completed his Bachelor's degree in computer
science from IIT Kanpur. He worked as a research assistant at HIIT.

Miika Komu (miika@iki.fi) is a researcher at HIIT. He
does HIP standardization and is one of the
developers for the InfraHIP Project. He also practices martial arts at a Takado club.

Andrei Gurtov (gurtov@hiit.fi) is
a principal scientist and group leader at HIIT.
He received his PhD degree from the University of
Helsinki in 2004. He has written a book on HIP
as well as more than 70 other publications. Andrei is
a fan of sailing.